The Neverending Story

You have to admire one thing about the movement conservatives -- and the Republican party, which relies on them for its very heartbeat -- and that's that they don't believe that any issue is ever settled as long as it seems to be settled in a fashion with which they disagree. If they don't want to do so, they don't even take yes for an answer. This is why anyone who counsels that we try to understand their point of view, or walk a mile in their shoes, or do anything except see them for the one-way, nihilistic vandals that they are, is off on a unicorn hunt from which they may never return. To borrow an early dictum from Senator John Blutarsky -- nothing is over until they say it is.

Let us take, as one example, the condition in the state of Texas of a woman's constitutionally guaranteed right to choose. Recently, the Texas legislature went through a stormy session in which it eventually sent to Governor Goodhair Perry one of the most draconian -- and nakedly unconstitutional -- anti-choice bills ever concocted. This was a big triumph, or should have been. However, if you hand Texas Republicans a steak, they'll send it back for sauce.

But that's not enough to satisfy Reps. Phil King (R), Dan Flynn (R), and Geanie Morrison (R) - who filed HB 59 on the same day that Perry signed the controversial abortion restrictions. So-called "heartbeat" bills are so radical that they divide the anti-choice community. In addition to criminalizing the vast majority of abortions, they also mandate invasive ultrasound procedures for women seeking abortions. In order to detect a fetal heartbeat so early in a pregnancy, doctors typically have to use a transvaginal probe.

I cannot tell you how much breath I have wasted arguing with good-hearted, open-minded liberals who wanted a "dialogue" with the more polite fetus-fetishists so as to find "common ground" on this most "difficult issue." The simple fact is that American women have a right that these people do not want them to have. Period. (That right is based in a right to privacy that most of these people believe is at best a constitutional confection and, at worst, an outright lie. The target always has been Griswold, not Roe.) They do not want that right exercised and they will do anything they can to keep it from being exercised, and they absolutely...will...not...stop.

Or, let us look at what's happening with the Voting Rights Act now that John Roberts has declared the Day of Jubilee and thrown the whole thing back to the Congress. Remember that, in killing Section IV so that Section V -- the pre-clearance provisions -- became unworkable, Roberts said that the Day Of Jubilee was upon us because suppressed voters could avail themselves of the clumsier protections of Section II, by which they could cite specific conditions that have discriminatory effects -- e.g. poll taxes, or literacy tests. Or, presumably, voter-ID laws. So, according to the new criteria of the Day Of Jubilee, voters were protected.

Unlike Section 5, Section 2-which lets victims of racial discrimination file suit-is an after-the-fact remedy, making it a less effective tool for stopping race bias in voting. Still, it's the strongest protection that the Voting Rights Act has left, and the weeks since the Supreme Court's ruling inShelby County v. Holder have made clear that Section 2 now figures to play a crucial role in legal efforts to defend voting rights, including in cases against voter ID, cutbacks to early voting, and other Republican-backed voting restrictions...Michael Carvin, the Republican lawyer who wrote the brief, and who testified along with Levitt Wednesday before the Senate panel, told MSNBC the term only means that Section 2 goes beyond what the Constitution explicitly allows, not that it's unconstitutional. (That Congress has enforcement powers beyond what's explicitly spelled out in the Constitution has long been accepted by all but a group of fringe legal theorists.) But it's not hard to see why voting-rights supporters might see in the term a subtle effort to call Section 2 into question. "The Constitution itself says Congress has not only the powers we give it, but any power necessary and proper to carry these other powers into effect. That's right there in the original text," Levitt said. "So it's weird to call something 'extra-constitutional' but not unconstitutional."

Ah, but not if you're Mike Carvin, whose concern for the integrity of America's elections drove him to a central role in the Great Florida Heist Of 2000. This spring, John Roberts gave the Michael Carvins of the world their Day Of Jubilee. But if you give those people ice cream, they'll send it back for hot fudge. The simple fact is that some people that the Michael Carvins of the world would rather not vote have a right to do so that the Michael Carvins of the world would rather they didn't have. They do not want that right exercised and they will do anything they can to keep it from being exercised, and they absolutely...will...not...stop. Nothing is permanent, no victory ever final if they do not want it to be.

Why do people always think they will? Why are people still seriously talking about Third Ways and No Labels and The Middle Where The Country Really Is? It will always puzzle me.

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